The Idyll of Garturk

Thursday, 1 January 2015

Space. Time. Quiet. In the West's interconnected world there is so little of all of these. Cascading information and Big Data means we are all overpowered with everything. Even 21st century art has fallen prey to this with the tendency to overpower the senses or shock rather than understate or imply.

Dave Eggers in some ways is a personification of this trend. Still only in his early 40s he has poured out gallons of work - all forms of prose, establishing literary magazines, running charitable foundations. He seems the last person that would take a breath and consider the lilies but in this remarkable novel that seems to be precisely what he is doing.

On the face of it a slight plot - a failed American executive has a (last?) shot at recapturing glory by giving a state of art presentation to the King of Saudi Arabia - as the title baldly states -to win a telecoms contract for the King's ultimate vanity project a new city in the desert - hides a novel that dissects the crisis facing the West in societal and individual terms.

What is also innovative for a 2010s work though is the prose style which echoes Hemingway in its sparse description and detatchment from the surroundings. Hemingway seemed to adopt this to illustrate emotional distance from the tumultuous events of the 20th century where most of his work was set Eggers it to illustrate the daze and confusion of his hero, a man out of time even if only by a few years.

This approach means the writing can be a bit cold but that is appropriate as the hero (rather clunkily named Alan Clay - as in man of) explicitly has shut his emotions down following the messy breakdown of his tempestuous marriage and the suicide of his neighbour. Both of these events dominate Alan's memories.

The writing style means that the surreal complex world of globalised capitalism can be explained through being understated. The undercutting of the language with the events is also an excellent device for humour which is used throughout the book.

Clay and his much younger co -workers are left waiting in a Becketian way (Sam B's prose is also not a million miles removed from this) for the King to arrive for what seems to last an age, To consolidate the humiliation they are based in a tent on the fringe of the modern complex of the new age city with (horror of horrors) no wi-fi! The ennui is filled with sleep, for Alan drinking illicit moonshine and worry about death, for his younger colleagues sex and anger.

In some ways the repetition of each day and suddenly nothing happening echoes the movie Groundhog Day - yet the characters do not seem to gain any enlightenment by being held in stasis.

Alan has other worries - a lump present on his spine. An almost constant presence in the work and thus in his mind. It ultimately proves to be benign but it performs its task by constantly reminding him of his mortality as does his recall of the suicide and his neighbour's body after he drowned.

One criticism you could make of the work is that it perhaps is a little too allegorical - Alan in his 50s illustrating the decline of US capitalism. He made his name and precarious fortune in sales of bicycles - a manufacturing industry - until he was wiped out by Chinese low cost manufacturing. He is sitting about waiting to be called by an oil rich nation playing on toys (ipads etc made by China). There is a very funny scene of the American group being almost paralysed by the lack of wi-fi and stroking their smart phones like they were small pet animals to encourage them to connect to the net. Ultimately and unsurprisingly the Chinese win the contract for the telecommunications as well leaving Alan to his debts and unsustainable lifestyle. It IS obviously an allegory but I think the focus on a "successful" Western man wiped out by the credit crunch, his memories and his interaction with others lifts it from a purely period piece.

He befriends a Saudi driver who shows him the reality of life in the Kingdom. as does his wandering off the beaten track in the complex as he discovers the migrant labourers being used to construct the King's folly of a city - which is a real thing. This relationship does not end well - perhaps showing the distance of the US from the rest of the world. He also gets involved with two women - a Danish expat and a Saudi doctor - who remedies his lump - but proves to be quite impotent with both ; deliberately with the first and frustratingly with the latter. Again the inability to consummate looks a little bit clunkily symbolic of modern American capitalism.

Eggers has produced a very disciplined work here - his breakthrough and brilliant memoir a Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius overflowed with prose - he used footnotes, tiny fonts, wrote in the margin. This does the opposite. It has lots of space but with it discusses all the issues surrounding globalisation, personal disintegration and mortality. Although I think it slightly overdoes the allegory the characterisation and humour lifts it from that. A great read and although it adopts an old-ish prose style it is completely on the pulse of our 2014 world.

Saturday, 22 November 2014

It's not every writer that can take a break from writing a classic to pen an excellent novella but as we should know by now FD is not every writer. For this is exactly what he did with this work alongside one of his masterpieces Crime and Punishment. Apparently he wrote this in four weeks and in a very un Dostoevsky Hollywood moment he fell in love and married the young stenographer who helped him. This has been the subject of a pretty ropey movie with Michael Gambon - interspersed with the plot of the original book - which to be honest would need a bit of padding as it is a fairly slight story.

The other part of this story is that the reason he wrote it was to pay off a gambling debt. This segues into the most striking element of the book - that is the element of autobiography. All the early Dost traits are here: doomed unrequited love with unattainable woman, mediation on the nature of addiction and vaguely xenophobic characteristics of the main European nationalities. In some ways the work this most resembles is his travel journal of his continental travails.

I think one of the most significant elements of the work is that it is his first fiction set completely outside Russia. This gives a sharpness to his description of the Russian psyche when they are far from home. The nominal "hero" works in the loosest sense for a "family" of chancers - an ostensibly aristocratic group who have washed up in the elite mittel - European gambling resort of Roulette-enberg. Headed by the General the pretence is that they have untold wealth - he has attracted a few parasitic good looking hangers-on with this story.

In reality there is nothing there. Quite a telling comment by FD on the flimsiness of the image of much of the entourage of Tsarist Russia in the 19th Century. Money means status - nothing else; it is not related to work or wages. A common theme of some of the weaker aristocratic figures in Dost's work. When there is no money everything else crumbles away. This is similar to FD's characterisation of a French nomadic aristocrat who does seem to have wealth - maybe making an ironic point of the relative wealth of an aristocrat who comes from a country that overthrew its feudalism to the poverty of ones from a country that they nominally rule. The pragmatic Englishman (Mr Astley! Never gonna give him up) who is in the ambit of the group has a stable financial background - the nascent bourgeoisie then beginning to dominate all of Europe - if not Russia.

Given that context gambling is the perfect activity. Dostoevsky explains brilliantly in parts of the work the attraction of beating the casinos: in the novella (and in FD's actual life) this is roulette. He also explains the double think and calculations gamblers make with every transaction in life - including in the final analysis with the "Gambler" Alexis' romantic obsession with the femme fatale Polina. He also provides a whistle stop tour of the finer technical points of "rouge et noir" or the roulette wheel -useful for any online gambling addicts out there. Money and the weird forms of coin that make up the currency are a constant in the work - all relations are measured in some financial way - with wins and losses.

There is no real narrative direction the Gambler wins and loses but it is full of very funny vignettes. In particular the appearance of the General's grandmother - who the General is expecting to drop dead at any minute to give him his legacy - at the resort and her arrogant behaviour which sees her believing she will beat the odds. In short measure she loses all her wealth outlined in painful detail as the General sees his Russian inheritance essentially disappear before his eyes.

Another thing I noted about the work was the absence of any real ideological debate which underpins most of the dynamic of Dostoevsky's fiction. Perhaps this is what leads to the slightly disposable feeling of the piece. It seems to focus solely on the dynamic of inter-Euro relations of the nineteenth century and Alexis own obsessions with gambling and Polina - the former wins. There are a few broad swipes at comparing Russia with other European countries but that is about it - no detailed dissection of nihilism or the necessity of religious feeling.

It is an enjoyable 100 pages though and actually given the utter reliance on gambling which late capitalism has - with house prices, credit and the stock market - there is a telling insight into the psychology of people thrust into this world. In 2014 in a sense that is all of us if we want to navigate the choppy waters of capitalism. I think Dostoevsky saw this even in early nineteenth century capitalism and could see the problems attached - he wrote this to clear his own gambling debts for God's sake!

All in all a slight detour from the wonders of writing Crime and Punishment then but a worthwhile little rest. That he created this in essence as a throwaway tells us a lot about the writer and the man.

Monday, 29 September 2014

Some books are beyond review. Their iconic status means they become elevated from the normal rules of criticism. Forever, "The Quarry" by Iain Banks will be remembered. Not because of its writing style, plot or characterisation but because it was his final work before he died far far too early of cancer. In fact it came out two weeks after his death.

This status is enhanced by the coincidence (apparently) that one of the main characters (the generically named Guy) of the work is himself dying of cancer. The book focuses on one of the last weekends of his life where his pals from University gather together for a reunion. A painful problem for the work is that as the ex-film students watch their friend's death unfolding so do Iain Banks readers. A poignancy enhanced by the close relationship many of Banks' readers (and I would include myself in this) have with his work. As a result of this I think many Banks devotees will genuinely struggle with it particularly towards the end.

So now to attempt the impossible: how is it? The truth is that I think the work is fairly slight. That it was written and completed at all I guess is the wonder of it. An immediate and constant problem for me is the authorial voice. It takes the original (and structurally difficult) approach of having a first person narrator throughout - Kit: the 18 year old son of Guy - an autistic young man. Using someone with a different way of looking at the world is not original - Faulkner's "The Sound and Fury" and more recently the The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night - Time - (specifically an Autistic child). This unreliable/reliable narrator has some advantages - it works well for humour as the deadpan approach of someone on the spectrum undercuts some of the more over the top statements of the other characters.

The problem is that the constant prose style has a clipped sparse tone - exactly like a teenage autistic would have. In some ways (and interestingly) it is a bit like Ernest Hemingway who uses this style throughout all his fiction, I don't know what this says! One tone throughout a novel is a difficulty though and means the work necessarily short as it runs out of places to go. I also wonder given his illness whether it was easier for Banks to write like this - there is no need for extensive description or developed language. When suffering from a particularly nasty painful disease I can see the advantage of this.

The gathering takes place over a weekend in Guy and Kit's rundown Victorian pile overlooking the titular Quarry - the ambiguity of the word is used throughout and perhaps obviously as Moz put it "You are The Quarry". The owners of the quarry want to buy the house to enlarge their working space - this is quite a powerful aspect of the book the relentless encroachment of the millennia old rocks like the coming of death to us all. There is a prolonged scenes in the bowels of the quarry

I saw a Will Self talk at the book festival of the literary theories that there are only several ur-texts from which all novels are derived. One of these is the Fisher King - the quest saga: searching for the Holy Grail. Quarry is focused on a search the Uni friends (all holding very 2010s jobs - meaningless management consultant roles, film critic, career and machine politician) want to use their time together to find a film they made together at uni which they want destroyed. It is/was (as everyone and even Kit suspects) their attempt at porn. Tied with this quest is Kit's search for his mother who Guy has never revealed and could be one of the three female friends - including the one to which Kit is closest and also attracted to Hol (the critic).

There are two pieces in the work that Banks can only get away with I think because of the nature of the narrator - a scene where there is a literal list of films that Hol has recommended - very male. There is also an unwise and overlong description of a role playing video game (is that what they still call them) that Kit is a recognised world expert at. Again very stilted and reflective of Banks' own obsessions.

The list of movies underlined to me the similarities of certain films to this work - the Oxbridge Fry/Laurie/Thompson (and Branagh directed) early 90s "Peter's Friends" and the 80s US "The Big Chill". Like these works there are unresolved tensions, sexual, jealousy that all bubble up to a big confrontation on the last night together. Some things are resolved and revealed, some aren't and Guy dies eventually.

The relationship between the group is one of the strengths of the work - particularly viewed by Kit the outsider. However although the characters do stand up on their own right Banks does fall prey to something he has done throughout his work - not really disguising his own voice through rants - Guy on "fighting" cancer (an excellent monologue in terms of content) and Hol provides the outlet against the current political system.

It is testimony to Banks' first rate skills as a writer that he pulled all this together and made it readable and fun in places. For all its flaws it slips down as easily as one of the Islay malts that Iain Banks adored. But on reflection I don't think it will stand as one of his strongest works - although I think it is as representative of our coalition austerity time of 2014 as any other fiction I have read. So it may have historical significance even beyond Banks. His last Science Fiction work - also a wistful study of mortality has more to recommend it.

But as I said none of that really matters. This is the last book Iain Banks will ever write. And I will miss him. That is the real legacy of this book.

Thursday, 28 August 2014

I always have a trepidation of approaching work considered as a "classic". Not that I would feel any compunction about saying er it's not very good but rather there seems to be too much history around it - particularly in literature. I found this weight appeared more than usual with Dostoevsky's stand out book as it is related to law in the broadest sense, the area of human "knowledge" in which I work. But sometimes all your worries are blown away and the term "classic" is completely appropriate as in this case. A brilliant novel.

One good sign is that the book surprises you in lots of ways. Even having spent the last couple of years reading the novellas/novels of Dostoevsky I still have a picture in my mind of the setting being bleak, dark, wet, cold like Russian winter cold. But this novel is hot - really hot set at the height of summer "early July, in exceptional heat" as the first line of the novel puts it. The crime - a double axe murder which even now in these anaesthetised times is a shocking read - takes place in the smelly, cramped heating setting of a St. Petersburg tenement flat.

Like most of Dostoevsky's other works to this point it is also unarguably an urban novel . People and cultures are living on top of each other in the city - interacting in lots of chaotic ways. One of the characters is killed by being run over. Again touching on another common theme of Dost the tensions are clear between the strict feudal hierarchy of Tsarist dictatorship and the burgeoning urban life/squalor of Russia's biggest city. Immigration is also a reality with many different nationalities mentioned in particular German landlords. One scene has the accent and lifestyles of Germans living in Russia mocked - a very modern development as nation states interact through people.

In the midst of this world a murder happens. It occurs early in the book and we know the perpetrator. Raskolnikov - a drop-out law student living in the archetypal garret room not even a flat. By the end of the work he confesses to the police. And that's about it as far as plot goes (apart some family developments with his sister and his burgeoning relationship with a prostitute Sonya). This is not a who-dunnit or even why -duunit this is an exploration of human psychology, interaction and ideas.

This is not a sprawling family saga but a tight, rich exploration of humanity in a very contemporary (for 1866) setting. I cannot really understand the phenomenal success of crime fiction - puzzle solving maybe -but everything that could be strong about a crime novel was covered here by Dostoevsky: the thinking of a killer, the consequences of meaningless violence and the ending of human life. Every crime book or the sub genre (apparently) psychological thriller since then that touches on this pales in comparison in my view.

Dostoevsky even creates a bumbling intellectual detective Porfiry who solves the crime early on. His interactions with Raskolnikov are excellent mind games . Porfriry was apparently the model for legendary TV Detective Colombo (and the structure of each show was broadly based on this work too) which you can see. In fact every cliched detective maverick with a brain (which he's not afraid to use!) has some roots in this little man - I'm thinking Cracker with his centre piece interviews/analysis with the criminals or more obscure Frank Pembleton in Homicide Life On the Streets - a forerunner of the Wire.

So plot is not really the thing but characters and ideas are. This probably explains why three has been quite a few dramatisations of it - not because of the story but the continuing power of Dostoevsky's creations.

Some of the ideas explored are pretty basic - why kill someone? What affect does it have on a killer, any? Although Raskolnikov seems to create a motive - the woman he murders is a "hag" and a money lender - he can use the money for a greater good - to re-establish himself as a student (tuition fees were about then!) and help his widowed mother and sister. Yet he ends up killing an "innocent" - the hag's half sister and never spends the money which he steals. In a vague echo of Johnny Cash - is he killing her "just to watch her die" or to see what will be the impact on him. Well it's not good - Raskolnikov retreats into his shell, but life goes on and his attempt to exist with his actions as the banality of life goes on around him is spellbounding to read.

Along with these fundamental questions there is also a lot of nineteenth century ideological debate. Another powerful aspect of this novel is that the discussion of these concepts neither seemss dated nor contrived. Often in fiction when the author is linking the novel with an idea it seems shoe-horned in. For Raskolnikov makes an attempt to intellectually justify the murder of "lesser" people - it is discovered that he has written an academic article (which Porfiry has read, obviously). He argues that exceptional people have the right to overcome their conscience as they have a higher and greater aim. Indeed the greatest people in history have introduced new laws and systems which traduce earlier ones thus they are by necessity turning things on their head. Napoleon is a recurring (and for the time current) example. His greatness and plans allowed him to take endless lives. It is still a symptom of psychiatric illness to believe you are the reincarnation of Napoleon or related to it. This is part of Dost's attack on the Nihilists and Early Utopian Socialists - essentially ascribing Raskolnikov with these views. The ends justify the means at one level but it is a bit more than that - the ends almost require these means. Some have seen this as an attack on Marxism but that is very unlikely as Marx's work was only in limited circles by then. But it is an attack on "modern" or "European" responses to the radically altering world in the nineteenth century. Particularly there are many side swipes at "What is to be Done" - the Utopian Socialist Novel.

For the problem with Raskolnikov is that even though he may believe the great man can do what he wants philosophical action the double murder he has carried out is impossible for him to bear and maintain his grip on reality. The dichotomy of actions that end in people's deaths - it seems easier to do this when ordered from a distance - like Napoleon or even Tony Blair. Interestingly it is the detective Porfiry who outlines the argument from the article to Raskolonikov in another memorable scene.

Again that highlights the strength of the work it is not a dry academic analysis on the impact on human pschye of killing one or two people (although it is partially that) it is a fast paced work with memorable scene after memorable scene. In many ways like a great piece of cinema.

There are dark characters found in the grottiest bars in back streets of St Petersburg - one called the Crystal Palace accurately enough. Early in the book he stumbles into a bar-room bore drinking his family's money away. He gives a brilliant monologue outlining the tedium, self indulgence and delusion of all drunks. This is so strong I almost hoped it wouldn't be referred to again - just existing as a stand alone piece. But there is a nod to the 19th Century novel plot and the fallen daughter which the drunk refers to becomes entangled in Raskolnikov's life - Sonya.

A true villain Svidrigailov also exists in the piece - although ironically we don't discover if he actually has killed anyone (though the murder of his wife and others is hinted at) where we do know that Raskolnikov did. He is attempting to seduce and pursue Raskolnikov's sister which he almost does in a chilling scene near the end. He also seems to be a peadophile - marrying a 15 year old in his fifties, grooming other children. Again a very modern, nasty dark truth written about by Dostoevsky. Svidirigailov also kills himself which Raskolnikov cannot bring himself to do. The nature of suicide is something which obsessed Dostoevsky.

There is so much in this work (in fact it is a book you could get obsessed with in itself). A disturbing scene where Raskolnikov demands Sonya reads Biblical passages to him. The comical uselessness of Luzhkin - a clerk on the make who manages briefly to convince Raskolnikov's sister to become engaged to him. And of course the creation of Porfiry. All of the work is of its time : St Petersburg 1866 - streets, events, people are referred to but also universal.

Dostoevsky really found his voice with this book - although he had written some strong pieces as I have outlined on this blog. Literally - this is a third person narrative although it follows Raskolnikov almost through every page: he apparently rejected the version where he was the narrator. There are two exceptions to this - near the end the narrative breaks from Raskolnikov to follow Svidrigailov - ending with his death. Also the Epilogue which has a strange distant tone - it follows Raskolnikov (or the criminal as it calls him) to his prison exile ( a la Dost himself) and his redemption through Sonya's love and (of course for FD) religion. I am not sure about that ending but it follows Dostoevsky's spiritual belief - the truly dark figure kills himself.
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It is great when "classics" live up to expectations and I have not really done it justice. In contemporary writers the balance of the very new with the universal is often attempted but never that successfully. Old Dostoevsky shows how it is done. Amazing.

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

In the mid eighties I remember hearing John Walters (Peel's legendary producer - also sadly deceased) reviewing the first ever Q magazine and speaking about the quiz within it. He thought it was a bit sad as it seemed like to complete it you needed O levels in Pop. An intricate study of any cultural phenomena runs this risk. Rather than appreciate the joy of a comedy routine, a painting, a poem or even a World cup goal you are trying to find the strings, the work behind the moment rather than see it and enjoy it for what it is. Pop music has an immediacy and a reliance on emotional response that means a clumsy approach to analysing it could either be tedious or ephemeral - the song could just dissipate under the weight of the microscope.

Bob Stanley (Member of St. Etienne and music journo)'s musical history of Pop is certainly intricate - weighing in at 750 pages. It certainly skirts with over the top analysis - a mentioning of a key change in a Big Fun (not missed at all 80s Stock, Aitken and Waterman glove puppets) track- but pulls back on the whole to offer a sprawling, argumentative, informative work. Bits of it reminded me of a long afternoon/evening in the pub with mates dissecting music track by track as pound after pound gets stuck in the juke box.

Male friends, maybe? One criticism could be that this type of book is just an extension of preparing lists or (in the old days, apparently) rearranging your records, tapes, cds in alphabetic order - an aspect of male repressed emotion or something. Or even worse it could be a mass compendium of Mojo and Record Collector articles or two years worth of Friday night BBC4 documentaries, a male heavy audience! Caitlin Moran has a pretty damning with faint praise review comparing the book with a London A-Z. - interestingly on the cover (smacks a bit of a publisher worried about how to market it).

Some of these criticisms may be valid but I say what the hell just accept that and dive in. Yet another immediate problem is presented by trying to explore the entire history of pop music - where do I begin (as many pop lyrics have asked) and where to end and er.. also what to leave in and leave out. Broadly Stanley has gone for a chronological approach - starting with the first ever pop- chart (another list) - with some years because of their significance (good and bad) meriting a whole chapter on their own e.g 1960, 1970, 1985, 1991. Though this means that epoch spanning artists have a chapter (Dylan, Beatles, Bowie) which cuts across times - this can jar a little. But it makes for some compelling essays the ones on Dylan and the Bee Gees are very good.

But then we get another issue which great minds have grappled with for eons (time and space). How do you summarise the work of artists who could - and have been - subject to massive tomes themselves? It ain't easy (another oft used pop lyric) but Stanley adopts a variety of approaches. One "interesting" method is to explore the Beatles through one album - the relatively obscure {well compared to the muso greatest lists of all time}: A Hard Days Night and argue that all the tensions, musical skills and potentially revolutionary sounds can be found in that work - which is stretching the point to say the least. But I like his ambition in attempting it.

Alongside the chronological journey genres of pop are thrown in at the time they appeared or became most significant with chapters of their own. Again, the problems of limits are here: when does pop become something else? Country Music has a chapter (set in the 70s period) mainly because he chooses to stick the Eagles in that genre but there is none for (pre-pop) Blues or Jazz. You can see why because the book would have become something else and it's already bloody 750 pages long (as the writer may respond to critics).

Reading the genre chapters I also became clearly aware that this is in many ways an internet book. Not because I read it on a Kindle or it has hyperlinks or anything horrific like that. I dutifully read the hard copy dragging the massive slab of a book around on my various journeys - looking at various locations like a manic street preacher with the bible - note the lower case. But because with an internet connection you have an immediate link to all the music mentioned. The music writer must now be aware of this - he is a curator who can highlight various tracks to the reader. This changes the skill from describing music (or dancing to architecture) to knowing you can find the song yourself - so puts it in context. The downside for this is that it can lead to play - list itis. There are a few chapters where there are 7 or 8 songs just mentioned for the reader to discover for themselves. It is quite fun to do this but made me wonder about the nature of music books now. The downside is you can lose an evening searching for say Pentangle Bsides...

Devoting a chapter to each genre is pretty unforgiving. Let's say some have not stood the test of time - I'm looking at you skiffle and San Francisco psychedelia. But at its best Stanley's writing can lighten up a whole style of music that entices you to find out more - early rock and roll and American 60s garage have now become my current obsession due to this.

Another thing which is pretty unforgiving is Stanley's decision making which is controversial but inevitable given the length of the work. Some artists simply don't make the cut. This must be down to the writer's own taste but I guess he does this because they are not original enough so just to name 4 there is no significant mention of Japan, Pixies, Blur and er the Eurythmics. I'm actually serious about that last one - I think the early albums were significant in 80s pop. But you may be surprised at some of the gaps

He is also very dismissive of bands - which at parts is very funny (his dismantling of the Boomtown Rats, the Britpop Chapter) even where I don't agree with him - his curt description of Carter USM but also could be seen as a nod to his editor who must have been tearing her hair out . Stanley also takes strong stances on some issues which are arguable but at least he doesn't approach it with a " wow isn't all music wonderful" Q magazine type style. His favourite Beatle is Paul McCartney, New Wave from 1978-81 is almost completely dismissed as chancers hopping on the back of the lull after the initial surge of punk, he goes into more detail than in humanly necessary about the Bee Gees back catalogue, New Romantics are stuck in with a movement he calls New Pop. from 1980 -3 which includes Adam Ant, ABC, Dexys, he also completely dismisses Band Aid (with his own aid of a Moz quote) - though I think he could do better than quote Neo- Liberal economist Moyo in defence of this postion. I like all this because again it equates with a pub/coffee shop/17th Century Salon argument.

So I think I have explored the sprawling magpie (is that possible?) like approach of the work. But overall it comes together. He throws up gems of tracks - for example showing how the turn of the decade Kylie singles were her best work and pretty phenomenal pop songs. He dissects throw away tracks like the Archies' Sugar Sugar - he won me over with that one. There is a slight tendency a la Paul Morley or Bill Drummond to say a pretty unremarkable track is the best record every made. Morley said Fantasy Island by Tight Fit was better than Led Zep III for example. Stanley does this with a lot of songs - say a couple of Bucks Fizz tracks - notably My Camera Never Lies - which you can sort of go along with. The power of this disposable pop is one of the reasons that 80s music is so resiliant in my eyes. Alongside this he puts forward a case for Public Image by PIL as the most important record ever made. But he goes too far when he says an early 90s abomination of a single by Slade(!) with UKIP cultural spokesperson Mike Read is "stellar" - this is it! I suppose that I feel so strongly about this shows the strength of debate you can have over what is supposedly such a short-term form.

The history is also skewed. Bob's own preferences shine through. There is a detailed dissection of almost every element of dance music from 1980 onwards track by track - every element of Detroit techno minutiae to the growth of happy hardcore in Rotterdam(!). Very informative and in Moran's terms encyclopediac but compare the discussion of 80s indie music over two pages (Morrissey's solo career 25 years old is literally covered in a footnote). Debatable over which was more influential on pop but not in thie work. There is an element of student dissertation here - he quite simply seems to run out of space so has to cram a lot in. The ending is a bit unsatisfactory - the essential conclusion being that nothing new, original or listenable has been made since the turn of the millenium. I am not clear if that is what he really thinks or if it just a question of time (as Depeche Mode -brief mention in work- said). It also has a geographic bias - key Scottish and Welsh bands aren't really explored but my god he does a lot in the work.

A book to read, cross reference when searching you tube, spill coffee on and argue about. Big, all encompassing - probably too much - and flawed. And much better than 2 years worth of BBC 4 Friday night documentaries.

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

1979. It seems to loom large in my existence at the moment. 35 years ago it may be but the current Top of the Pops repeats on BBC4 are from this year: great episode last week - Sunday Girl number 1 - and Bowie and Elvis Costello on! It was also the year of the first constitutional referendum in Scotland relevant in 2014 - a victory but a defeat for devolution. Of course it also lives in infamy as the year of the first election triumph of Thatcher although the economic model she devastated society with had already a couple of years behind it having its birth pangs in Chile amongst other places. So the end of an era or the beginning - or a bit of both.

Such contradictory times are an ideal setting for a good novel and the year 1979 is when Updike chose to set his third Rabbit novels Rabbit is Rich - a decade on from the racial tension of Rabbit Redux. For although Rabbit has still not moved from Brewer the economic beginnings and ends over the Atlantic in Uk plc were global and Rabbit Angstrom was right slap bang in the middle of it - as the ambiguous title of the work tells us.

By this work Updike had decided that there was going to be four of these novels which meant there was always going to be an inherent danger that this being the 3rd it would fall in to a bit of a rut. It could have just been a review of the 70s, popular references, fashions etc and lose its focus as a novel But as a piece of work it never fell into any of these traps - in fact I think it could be the strongest of the three I have read so far. One of Updike's skills as a writer of contemporary fiction writer I have found is that he can identify things about living in the era that are immediate but universal. So, the observations of the time are neither kitsch or immediately dated. Nixon - a critical figure for the American 70s - gets a throw away mention on page 2 although the Watergate hangover arguably fuelled the dash to consumerism and the tone of the novel.

The other benefit of the Rabbit series is that we are in his head and know of major events that have crashed into him. The narrative itself is almost exclusively from his perspective with a slight detour with his twenty something son Nelson, now a college dropout. So the reader can hit the ground running or not (!) for I think you could enjoy it on its own mainly because of the period where the characters operate.

Ironically given the context Updike has really struck oil by setting the work at this transitional time of consumerist capitalism. For Rabbit from the opening scene of him standing in his dusty car showroom where he works to the final scene settling into his heavily mortgaged "dream home" has the trappings of success defined by the wealth of American capital. He is Rich... or is he?

Now back with Janice (they were reconciled at the end of Redux) almost totally - he lives with his mother in law (father dead) in her house, has a job at her dead dad's car dealership - notably a Japanese brand: Toyota. Even his sexual proclivities - such a big part of the other novels are for the most part focused on Janice - with one fairly major exceptions.

The accumulation of wealth by Rabbit is outlined with unerring mundanity by Updike - the prose is full of figures and dollar signs, interminable conversations about car finance and investments. But this is of the time and by that I don't just mean 1979 I mean 2014. For the period of credit fuelled capitalism really sprang into life then - fuelling Thatcher and Reagan lets not forget too- and has never gone away despite the crunch 30 years later starting in one of the banks that Rabbit keeps his deposit box.

Those are just the trappings though for like the credit Rabbit's wealth seems based on sand - all in the hands of his wife and inlaws - who abandoned him in Redux and who he sprinted away from in the first novel. The world he lives in is as defining - the Iranian hostage crisis so critical to the petro-economy of the US buzzes away in the background, the oil price spike in the dog days of Jimmy Carter - even the young pope John Paul II's visit to the land of Mammon all seem to directly affect Rabbit in a way similar to the moon landings in the last book. Disco - with the voice of Donna Summer - is the partial soundtrack as Harry tries to dissect the lyrics of Hot Stuff. Tellingly most of this news arrives with Harry Rabbit on his car radio as he drives around burning oil.

The so called success and potential social climbing which Rabbit wants to indulge in is disrupted in many ways by the past in two ways. Firstly Nelson appears with a girl in tow strangely determined to make it as a car salesman and drop out of Uni and also the sight of a beautiful teenage girl makes him obsessed that she is his daughter from his 1950s scandalous tryst with Ruth.

The tension between this superficial belief in "wealth" and his struggle with his family real and imagined provide the real strength of this work . Where does Rich - ness come from? . In the other two books there seemed to be a character that acts as a vehicle for monologues that contextualise the underlying themes of the books - Skeeter in Redux and Reverend Eccles in Run. There is no one figure like that here although Rabbit's personification of success: Webb Murket - older with a very young wife does seem to represent consumerism and the trappings of wealth - this is more reflected in what he has rather than what he says.

The conflict really comes with his son Nelson who like all twenty somethings is simmering with rage about pretty much everything but again the reader has a good chance of knowing why he would be particularly angry with both his parents - having been abandoned at different times by each of them. The narrative arc of the work largely focuses on Nelson's return home with more than usual baggage - a pregnant girlfriend eventually emerges as does a curiously dated (even for 1979) shotgun wedding. Reflecting the essential small town nature of the Pennsylvanian city they live in. Becoming a Dad at a similar age to Nelson Updike outlines brilliantly the gamut of emotions young fathers have - fear, pride, happiness, loss, gain - a bundle of contradictions. Repeating his father's life in many ways although Rabbit with his eye on the consumerist prize hardly seems to notice - yet Nelson still maintains his independence. I thought the antipathy and love of the relationship between father and son was particularly well written.

The other "family" story culminates in Rabbit meeting Ruth - a much altered yet at base similar person from 20 years before. Ambiguities hang over this encounter which I thought was a little unfulfilled - perhaps Updike was setting this up for resolution in the last novel : it did feel a little contrived.

The narrative style again is stunning in places with its ability to transmit human thought particularly male thought in a readable way. I liked the interspersing of violent fantasy with banal thoughts - acts against Janice mainly - really exposing the underlying anger within Rabbit - the intermittent flashes of this along with crude sexual imagery is genuinely shocking in places.

The endless alcohol - Nelson's slightly older other half Prudence (Shamefully for Rabbit's bigoted mother in law a Catholic) drinks constantly through the pregnancy, Janice seems permanently sozzled- the social climbing of the country club, the nouveau riche trappings of the Murkett's home provide a real seventies flavour of the establishing U.S. middle classes. Rabbit even manages his first trip overseas in his life to the Caribbean culminating in another 70s image - a night of wife swapping swinging. That scene has all the awkward sweaty details that you could imagine as does the aftermath and consequences.

As well as all this the novel is very very funny in places. The drawn out scene where Rabbit and Janice change their investment from Gold to Silver dollars (as recommended by Capitalist scion Webb) and move it across town is hysterical. As is much of the dialogue between Rabbit and his greek chorus of fellow social climbers.

Are the tensions and contradictions of this era resolved for Rabbit? There is no real conventional plot as life began before the book started and goes on after it. Yet movingly in his mortgaged up to the hilt house the last paragraph has him holding his newborn grandaughter "hardly weighing anything but alive". Is this the Richness? or as the penultimate sentence put it "Another nail in his coffin". Perhaps all will be revealed in the next decade and final book. Or perhaps not.

Sunday, 29 December 2013

Nothing says Christmas like finishing a existential Russian novella critiquing 19th Century Utopian Socialism. Well in my house anyway. Dostoevsky's relatively short monologue from a name-less individual marks a significant change from his other work I have read so far. Although some of the themes touched on in House of Dead and even his grumpy travelogue make an appearance. The work, in my view takes a while to catch with the reader but by the end you are entranced with the inner revelations of the "Underground" man and not in a good way. Some passages are as cringe-worthy and car-crash viewing as David Brent or the Peep Show boys at their peak. Again Dostoevesky's modernist appeal can be seen here. I really don't think there was anyone writing like this in 1864.

The novella is split into two relatively distinct parts and the first part is quite hard going. Having said that: what an opening - "I'm a sick man, I'm a spiteful man. I'm an unattractive man. I think there's something wrong with my liver". I hadn't realised that Howard Devoto had lifted the sentiments of this for his single Song From Under the Floorboards (later covered by Moz!). The difficulty, for me in the opening third of the work is similar to Camus' The Fall - relying solely on one voice which do not really depict events but simply let rip on their general philosophical views is a difficult way into a book. In a sense you are walking in at the middle as you have no idea as to how the narrator became the way he is. This narrative device is resolved a little by the end when a number of significant incidents from his recent past explain his withdrawal from everyday society and most importantly human communication.

The other problem about this early part I think is it is very much specifically dealing with the debates amongst the Russian Intelligentsia at the time which you need to have at least a passing knowledge of to fully understand. For example the whole work was in part a response to the early Narodnik Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be done?" on the necessity of revolution a struggle in Tsarist Russia written the year before. This was a big favourite of Lenin's - he named one of his significant works after it.

So some of the bile in the first part is personal - FD's own rejection that material struggle and the improveability of man was possible or even worthwhile in achieving. Feudal Tsarism- though it does exist in the work is very much in the background. The narrator is a 40 year old retired civil servant - middle ranking in the strict hierarchy. He has a servant. His "enemies" later in the work are fairly high ranking soldiers. But for Dostoevsky this regime was not the focus of struggle rather it provided a context for the narrator's human feelings to unravel.

Essentially Dostoevsky argues that it is impossible to impose a logical framework or social system on humans because they will reject it almost as a matter of course. Human "volition" means that people will always react against being told what to do "sticking their tongue out at it". This will even be the case if it is not in their best interests to act in this way.

Scientific analysis of human behaviour and striving for a different society then is pointless. FD labels this as "2+2 = 4". But for man (and as ripped of by Radiohead) 2 and 2 always makes 5. In symbolism of the time he labelled the new society as the Crystal Palace - a new London Building mentioned in his Winter Notes and seen then as a pinnacle of human creation. The real thinker he says "does nothing" - action is the sign of someone who doesn't realise how pointless his actions are. "If only it were simply out of laziness I did nothing" In doing this he has a few side swipes at Napoleon (Bonaparte and the 3rd) so indirectly the actions of the French Revolution.

In part the writings are polemical so exaggerated - still readable but difficult to engage with. For example such rejection of struggling for new types of society ignores how the current society - in FD's case a slightly less brutal version of Tsarist autocracy - came to pass in the face of human thought and wish not to be dominated.

If the work was only this then it would simply be an editorial in one of the many literary magazines which Dostoevsky involved himself in at the time but it was obviously much more than this. Partly this is because of the second part of the work but also because I think FD is being deliberately and exaggeratedly provocative. Also in another modernist twist the narrator is very self aware of the strangeness of writing this all down as if "it will turn out grander on paper". So the text itself is continually being assessed. In fact at the end the narrator says "I don't want to write anymore"..but then an unknown voice intervenes and tells the reader that in fact he did go on but we'll just end it there.

Hinted at is the fact that the narrator was once an idealist believing in the "sublime and beautiful" - the perfectability of man but his experience made him turn away from this to a world of isolation, debauchery and the "Underground".

These urban St Petersburg events are outlined in Part 2 of the work "Apropos of the Wet Snow". I think setting is important here - the city landscape was unreal and surreal for most Russians at that time but hundreds of thousands had to adapt to the lifestyle. Similar to FD's earlier work - The Double - this threw up unlikely situation. It symbolises the combined and uneven development of Russia at that time as mentioned by Lenin and Trotsky in their work. The narrator's disengagement from ltraditional life I don't think could have occurred anywhere else in Russia.

The events focus on the narrator's inability to interact with other humans. In one pitiful dragged out scene he outlines how he imposes himself on some old school acquaintances' going away party, gets drunk and borrows more cash even though noone wants him there. He knows he should go but "Needless to say I stayed".
One passage was particularly brutally honest : "Disorder, leftovers, a broken glass on the floor, spilt wine, cigarette ends, intoxication and wild gibberish in my head, tormenting anguish in my heart...." Yes, I'm sure we've all been there...

To compound the humiliation he ends up in a brothel where he lambasts a young Latvian prostitute Liza over her behaviour (ignoring the fact he had just used her - a bit of Dostoevsky's own hypocrisy coming out then). He then gives her his address to "save her" - immediately regrets it when he sobers up and in an amusing but desolating end to the work we see why the narrator can no longer interact with human beings. There is also an interesting side line here in discussing the narrator's servant who acts towards him with open disdain - again a fairly modernist touch.

I am not sure if the rant/monologue at the beginning fits in completely with the second part. That is I am not sure that the incidents explain the strength of the language used at the start - or whether they are simply a device to have a go at some of his contemporaries and their interaction with a very early form of Marxism. But the work as a whole is very good and very funny (an unappreciated element of Dostoevsky). Its view of humanity is open to debate but his outline of the contradictory and difficult elements of human conciousness and how it deals with reality is not dealt with much better by other writers.